Awesome Summer Sensory Play Ideas For Your Kids
Last Updated on: 14th August 2022, 12:14 am
Summer Sensory Play Ideas
Summer is such a fantastic time of year for you and your children to explore sensory play together. Sometimes sensory play can get a bit messy. So the warm summer days present a brilliant opportunity for parents to create amazingly fun sensory play activities for babies and young toddlers. Without worrying about the children getting cold or upset. Here are some of our favourite summer sensory play ideas that are easy for parents to set up and provide some seriously good fun for the kids. Here are some great sensory play ideas to enjoy with your kids.
Water Sensory Play Ideas
When it comes to summer sensory play ideas, you can’t go wrong with a bit of water play! Water makes a brilliant base for so many sensory play activities. This means that there are tons of options for fun and educational sensory play. Water play is a low-cost sensory play idea and, although children are likely to get relatively soggy, there’s no chance of any clothing becoming stained. Here are a few of our favourite water play sensory play ideas.
Car Wash
With some water, a few bubbles, and a clean washing-up sponge, children can spend hours giving all their favourite cars a good clean.
Use Natural Ingredients
A big tray of water, some lemon slices, and a few scoops/utensils are all that are needed to keep children happy and engaged during the summer months.
Colour Sorting
Water provides so many learning opportunities for young children. One of our favourites involves using different colours of plastic toys (such as fish), and a few cheap nets from the pet shop. Sorting the different toys by colour is a fun summer sensory play idea that keeps children entertained for hours, whilst teaching them their colours at the same time.
Frozen Sensory Play Ideas
Some frozen sensory play ideas provide lots of fun for small children as frozen play activities usually involve a few challenges, as well as some hidden goodies.
Frozen Wet Sand
Frozen wet sand is such a fun summer sensory play idea for children! As the frozen sand starts to defrost, children can dig through the wet sand and discover hidden gems, such as pirate toys, dinosaurs, or sea creatures. Add your container of frozen sand to your tub of water and provide a few scoops or plastic kitchen utensils for some extra fun.
Frozen Dinosaur Eggs
These are great messy play options for dinosaur-mad children! They’re so easy to prepare: simply pop a small plastic dinosaur into a balloon, top up with some water and some food dye, and then freeze. Give your child some utensils, such as a small toy hammer and some scoops, and watch as they figure out how to crack into the egg and hatch their very own pet dinosaur. Make sure you remove the balloon first and provide your children with some protective clothing, such as an apron, to avoid the food colouring from staining their clothing.
Oobleck
Gooey oobleck is a firm favourite among babies and toddlers. It’s easy to wash and clean up after use, but most importantly, it’s taste safe. To make oobleck, you only need a couple of ingredients: corn flour, water, and food colouring. Oobleck is mesmerising and it is truly joyous to watch children discover this magical substance for the first time. When fast, sudden pressure is applied to oobleck, it becomes a solid matter. However, with small movements, it stays in a liquid form. This means you can scoop up a handful of oobleck and it’ll feel solid in your hand, but as soon as you stop moving and open your hands, it’ll transform back into a liquid state and drip back down into your container. Oobleck really does provide hours of fun, not only for the children but for the adults as well!
